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ProRes 720p – Flash
Hi All,
I have recently upgraded and made the push to HD with a purchase of the HMC-150. To save space and because our website does not have the capability to playback HD quite yet I have been shooting in 720P.
The end result is SD 16×9 Flash.
My strategy thus far has been work in HD with HD graphics (lower thirds and a right hand corner branding bug). From there I send the project right to compressor and use DV NTSC anamorphic. I then take that format and use On2 Flix Standard and set it to use source framerate and frame size. 96 kbps audio and a maximum bitrate of 700kbps – to try and gain a little extra quality over the preset 512 kbps.
For the most part I feel this looks alright but I feel like the graphics are getting mangled in the flash conversion. They look fine to me in quicktime (though I believe I’m running quicktime X for what it’s worth). The graphics on the web look more like when you preview a file in Finder by hitting the spacebar.
My two questions then are – Is there a better way to get to Flash from FCP
Should I compress down to SD and then put the graphics in?Your time, answers, and any other suggestions are greatly appreciated
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7 Replies
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Why not compress the 720 movie down to your flash size? Dv is terrible for graphics and there’s no reason to use the dv compression as an intermediate. What’s your final frame size? 640×360?
Flash is also extremely comprssed and text can get crunched. Make sure your using thick enough fonts, even if it might look a bit silly in your HD timeline. You should run a few short tests to see what’s going to look best. Sometimes, flash programmers have us make a textures version and they add text later to keep it all vector based. It’s an extra step and more time and money, but if it’s important enough it makes for a better read.
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[Mark Laslo] “Is there a better way to get to Flash from FCP”
h.264
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Capture HD
Edit HD
Output Sequence Current Settings – ref fileCompress to whatever format needed.
Don’t double compress.Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta -
Hi Chris,
I don’t have any software except on2 flix to go from video to Flash. Would you recommend this as a solution?
Thanks,
Mark -
Compress your final HD movie to H.264 in Compressor and then change the extension to .flv. The more recent Flash players are compatible with H.264.
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Thanks Chris,
I’ll try that, though I noticed when I used the H.264 codec that my cross-dissolves seem to get a lot of extra artifacts. My workflow for this had been work in HD and then convert to H.264 in compressor with these settings – of which i guessed at –
Name: H.264 700Kbps Streaming copy
Description: H.264 for medium-bandwidth streaming
File Extension: mov
Estimated size: 495.36 MB/hour of source
Audio Encoder
IMA 4:1, Stereo (L R), 48.000 kHz
Video Encoder
Format: QT
Width: 720
Height: 480
Pixel aspect ratio: NTSC CCIR 601/DV
Crop: None
Padding: None
Frame rate: 29.97
Frame Controls: Automatically selected: Off
Codec Type: H.264
Multi-pass: On, frame reorder: On
Pixel depth: 24
Spatial quality: 75
Min. Spatial quality: 25
Temporal quality: 50
Min. temporal quality: 25
Average data rate: 0.717 (Mbps)
Maximum data rate: 0.717 (Mbps)
Hinted for QuickTime
streaming serverOur server seems to be able to handle people watching at between 500 and 700 kbps without running into buffer issues. This makes making the push to HD not possible at current, at least to my knowledge. Any suggestions are appreciated.
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You want your frame size to be 640 x 360.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group
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